Best Shore Blueprint Outlined by SPi

NASHVILLE, TN--(Marketwire - October 8, 2007) - SPi, one of the largest medical transcription providers in the United States and a leading business process outsourcing company, highlighted dual paths to faster performance at AHIMA's 79th Convention and Exhibit in Philadelphia this week.

With its Best Shore model, SPi provides its transcription clients with the flexibility of choosing where their work will be done -- whether that be in the U.S., off-shore, or both. Regardless of where its medical language specialists reside, SPi rigorously trains its employee base to assure the highest levels of speed and accuracy, and all this while simultaneously maintaining rigid standards for data security.

Speaking about SPi's Best Shore approach, Dave Woodrow, Managing Director of SPi's Healthcare division, shared, "Where improvements in turnaround times are paramount, the Best Shore model offers clients an attractive answer. This is because in the Best Shore model, work is performed wherever it makes the most sense for a customer -- one country, two countries, or more."

To complement its Best Shore labor model, SPi recently purchased the source code for its transcription platform, ChartNet. "This is a great platform, and now that we have more control over this important transcription tool, our software engineers see ways to take it to a much higher level," Woodrow says. "The enhancements we are working on will make users, especially our medical language specialists, more productive and will also allow us to deliver on specific changes requested by our customers in a much more timely fashion."

SPi has also moved aggressively into speech recognition, adopting a software platform that automatically turns medical dictation into accessible, retrievable, and shareable electronic files that its medical language specialists can then edit. One client is live with the technology and others are on the way.

"Speech recognition is another facet of our "faster" world. It assists medical language specialists with their productivity and allows them to add value to the processed report. This leads to better and faster coding, which leads to better and faster patient care, and in the end, faster reimbursement for the hospital or clinic," says Mike McDonald, Chief Operating Officer for SPi's Healthcare division.

About SPi

SPi is a leading full-service Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions provider with offices and facilities across North America, Europe, and Asia. SPi has more than 13,000 employees worldwide delivering a wide range of call center and knowledge-based outsourcing services to diversified markets, including healthcare, legal, and publishing. SPi consistently improves operating efficiency, lowers costs, and helps to strengthen the competitive position of more than 500 clients.

SPi's Healthcare division provides medical transcription and revenue cycle management services to more than 400 healthcare systems across 49 states (all but Alaska) and has been recognized by numerous industry and community associations for superior business operations and profitable growth. The Healthcare group employs more than 1,400 employees in the U.S., India and the Philippines.

SPi is owned by ePLDT, Inc. ePLDT, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the leading telecommunications provider in the Philippines. PLDT is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PHP: TEL), and its American Depository Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: PHI).

For more information on SPi, visit www.spi-bpo.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Elizabeth Nolan Vice President, Global Marketing Washington, DC (202) 449 7692